Drinking the Witch’s Brew

 

It could be that it had been saved

on a shelf for a moment like this one, 

to pass the thin, china teacup down

like the other objects before—a piggy bank

painted by another Lilith, whiskey jugs

filmed in dust, envelopes stuffed with doubles 

and negatives—because I’m ready

to hold this serpent in my hands

and feel the scales along the belly, knowing

in another time such hard, raised bumps

meant poison. The gilded rim and handle,

the grey patina finish, and the breath of fire

barely remain where fingers had gathered 

to bring the brew to the lips in an offering to flight.

 

 

from First Wife (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013)

first appeared in Les Femmes Folles: VOICE exhibit, 2012 

 

Lilith Imagines her Headstone

 

Guarded by a low stone wall, the family plot

marks his lineage, FATHER, SON, SON, etc.

in the space of a sandbox. Claiming dead center,

his joint monument stands erect and several feet taller

than the family, while his first wife remains a blank

raised box after the dash, as if she did away

with the vows, the blizzard’s mean snarl and bite,

and chose not to lie down and be buried beside this man.

 

from First Wife (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013)

first appeared in the On Our Own: Widowhood for Smarties (Silver Boomer Books, 2012)

© Copyright, 2013, Laura Madeline Wiseman.
All rights reserved.